Press Releases

SanDisk's Lil' Monsta Goes On A Rampage In MP3 Land - Eating All Types Of Content In Effort Against Conformity

Jul 7, 2006

Newest icon - a creature with a beastly appetite for music, video and images - will lead SanDisk campaign for its high-end Sansa e200 digital media player

MILPITAS, CA, JULY 7, 2006 - When SanDisk ® Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) launched a viral "blogosphere" campaign last month called iDon't - with a humorous take on conformity involving a certain ubiquitous digital audio player with white earbuds - it triggered a worldwide debate. Some partisans cried "foul" while others hailed the effort for encouraging MP3 player alternatives and open music platforms.

An iDon't website (www.idont.com) depicted whimsical posters and tee-shirts with slogans such as iSheep, iFollow and iChimp . Some of the faithful "i" followers laughed along with the satire, while others took offense at the images.

Today the iSheep have been replaced by SanDisk's new mascot - the Lil' Monsta . Users who click on the iDont website now will see the ravenous creature leading viewers to its lair - a new website that explains the features of SanDisk's Sansa ™ digital media players. The Lil' Monsta devours all sorts of digital content - including music, movies, videos and photos. And, with a seemingly insatiable appetite, it demands to be fed constantly.

Lil' Monsta, created by Grey San Francisco, SanDisk's advertising agency, will be running amok on its own website, looking for content to ingest. The Lil' Monsta website (www.lilmonsta.com) shows, in clever animations, the distinguishing Sansa features such as a larger color screen, voice recorder, FM radio, microSD™ expansion slot, durable rear metal casing and user-replaceable lithium-ion battery. Like the Lil' Monsta, Sansa owners can just keep feeding their devices.

Beyond the Internet, Lil' Monsta also will show up on future packaging for SanDisk's flash-memory-based Sansa players and on in-store displays.

"We think that marketing for MP3 players has been much too serious, and so we are taking a tongue-in-cheek approach," said Nelson Chan , executive vice president and general manager of consumer products and corporate marketing. "We had tremendous response to the iDon't campaign, which launched a spirited discussion over the merits of open versus closed music systems. Lil' Monsta also delivers the message that our Sansa e200 player has plenty of capacity to store and play content - and not just music. It has the value-added features of storing and playing video clips and digital images, and at prices that rival those of other players on the market."

The Sansa e200 player is offered in capacities of from 2 gigabytes (GB) to 6 GB*, with an additional 1GB possible from the largest available microSD card from SanDisk. That allows users to expand the amount of content they can store in their players and to easily swap out music between devices with microSD slots. Suggested retail prices for the Sansa e200 players range from $169.99 to $269.99.

Also, in contrast to a proprietary or closed system of selling music online - in which songs can be played only on designated players - the Sansa e200 supports an open platform, accepting the broadly-used MP3 and WMA music formats (downloads plus subscription). The Sansa e200s also are Microsoft PlaysForSure compliant, which means they can take advantage of numerous music service providers such as Rhapsody, Yahoo Music and Napster.

SanDisk is the second largest manufacturer of MP3 players in North America , according to NPD market research. "We've been very successful reaching our strong position in the U.S. because of our quality products, low prices and prominent exposure through major consumer electronics merchandisers and department stores," said Chan. "Flash memory represents about half the cost of a flash-based player, so SanDisk's ability to manufacture our own chips allows us to pass the savings on to the consumer."

SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is the world's largest supplier of flash data storage card products, using its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is headquartered in Milpitas , California , and has operations worldwide, with more than half its sales outside the U.S.

SanDisk and the SanDisk logo are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the United States and other countries. Sansa is a trademark of SanDisk Corporation. microSD is a trademark. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder (s).